


Like Birds on High

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Introspection, Nudity, Running Away, Seaside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone needs a chance to run away sometimes, even good and noble detective inspectors. (Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4911889/chapters/11268301">"Beyond the Sea"</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Professional Distance

Phryne held up the knot she’d tied between one end of her embroidered scarf and Jack’s blue feather-patterned tie, which he had obligingly loaned her for the demonstration. “And... voila.” Jack pursed his lips and had to nod; she was right. Again. “These sheets were tied with _thief_ knots,” Phryne said, in case he needed the explanation. “They’d never bear the weight of a young girl.” She whipped the knot apart with a flourish. 

“Hm.” Jack tipped his head slightly, considering. “I do know my knots, Miss Fisher, though I’m curious as to how you do.” The challenge in his voice was more than noticeable. 

Phryne cast her eyes innocently heavenward as she straightened her scarf. “There was this Portuguese sailor I once knew...”

“Nngh, enough.” It was one of the rules of their private affair that there would be no discussion of Phryne’s past men. He knew she still took the occasional casual lover, and thought it was not ideal for either of them, so far it had proved workable, but he still had no desire to hear about them. Jack swiftly re-buttoned his collar. “So somebody prepared the rope to explain Bernadette’s escape.” His frown was surprisingly worried. “Who would need to do that?”

“Whoever let her out. One of the girls?” 

Jack’s frown deepened. “They're hardly forthcoming.” 

“Well, what do you expect? They live in fear of the Penitence Room. My father used to lock me in a cupboard,” Phryne continued, the memory making itself sourly known, “to try and break my spirit.” 

“Clearly didn't leave you there long enough,” Jack replied, teasing lightly. Phryne gave him a look that boded no good and he went on quickly. “What about Perpetua? Or one of the nuns.” 

“I can’t imagine them doing Bernadette a favour,” she said, with soft distaste. She thrust Jack’s tie at him and he took it in dismay.

“Oh, you’ve... you’ve creased it now.” He fingered the silk and wondered if he could convince Miss Williams or Mr. Butler to press it for him, the next time he was at the house. 

Phryne rolled her eyes. “Oh, come here.” She took the tie and looped it over his head, folding and tucking it underneath his collar. The movements of her fingers, briefly tickling in the short hairs at the nape of his neck, forced Jack to tilt his head down. His eyes focused on the knot holding the long draping lapels of her blouse’s collar closed. It rested just over where Jack knew Phryne’s cleavage to be, and he sat obediently for a moment or two, remembering the last time he had seen that part of Phryne and felt her against his face and lips. 

Her hands moved to his throat, slowly wrapping the heavy silk into a perfect knot. Her scent wafted around him, the smells of French perfume and talc and the strong waxy odor of her lipstick just inches from his nose, a delicate mosaic of refinement overlaying earthier, more personal scents that brought vivid memories to mind. His eyes drifted up the fine pale skin of her upper chest and throat, lingering on her lips, and Jack recalled just how long it had been since they had been able to slip away to Phryne’s demure little cottage by the sea. “Phryne...”

She paused in the act of tying his tie and looked up from her work to see what he knew must be an expression of incredible longing. Her tongue flickered out, just the tip, to moisten her lips before speaking. “Jack?”

He rose up an inch from the desk, leaned forward a fraction, and kissed her softly, his almost noiseless sigh of relief entirely unheard beneath Phryne’s low moan of contentment. 

It was all either of them dared to do, in his office—or rather, all Jack dared to attempt. What Phryne Fisher would not dare to do had not yet been invented by man or god. But Jack had to at least appear to maintain his professional distance to Melbourne’s most beautiful and infuriating private investigator... or so he kept insisting to himself. So he let the kiss end as sweetly as it had begun, and sat back on his desk. 

Phryne’s hands were still on his half-knotted tie, and her eyes were full of him. A thought began to form in Jack’s mind that, perhaps this Friday evening, if they could resolve the case, even though it was nearly winter, a retreat to the seaside might be made...

“Jack. Miss Fisher.” 

Jack sighed inwardly and rose to his feet, nudging Phryne back a few inches. George Sanderson had not knocked upon entering his office, but then, Jack had not troubled to close the door.

Sanderson’s keen eyes swept over them, taking in every little detail of disarray. “You do indeed keep close company these days,” he said evenly, his fingers twitching the brim of his hat. 

Jack, in the midst of putting his tie to rights, shot a glance at Phryne that was both apology and request. She understood at once, but her tight lips showed how unhappy she was to concede. She grabbed for her purse. “I was just... on my way out.” 

She walked past Sanderson without another word, her head held high, and as she closed the door she gave Jack one last look, that seemed to say “Good luck” and “God help you”, all in one fervent expression.

 _So much for the seaside,_ Jack thought, turning his attention reluctantly to his former father-in-law.


	2. Come Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently there _was_ a kiss edited out of the end of 2x12 "Unnatural Habits". So I put it back in.

Jack sat morosely in his car on the darkened St. Kilda street, tapping his fingers on the coachwork. Inside him, the nervous tense energy hummed like a live exposed electrical wire, but the tapping was the only outlet he would allow himself right now. His instinct in that moment was to flee. Every muscle fibre in his body, every drop of blood in his veins, was urging him to drive off into the night at top speed and not look back, possibly forever. 

He was too well-trained in resisting his instinctive impulses, more’s the pity. Most of the time. 

Finally he moved, exiting the car and quietly making his way up the front walk. Standing before the door, Jack paused, his hand halfway to the knocker. It was late, although there was a light in the parlour. Phryne often stayed up late, of course, but it had been a hectic day…

Jack tapped lightly at one of the elegant stained glass panels that framed the front door, hoping someone was near enough to hear him. He tapped once, and once more, just in case, and then he leaned on the frame, waiting. 

After a moment, in which he willed himself to stop trembling, the door gently opened. Phryne Fisher’s face, tired and uncharacteristically clean of cosmetics, peered out at him. He saw the flicker of surprise pass through her eyes and then be quickly suppressed, but she said nothing, only stepped back when he stepped forward, and opened the door wider to let him in.

Phryne closed the door and hung back a little. “I thought you were with Rosie,” she said softly, making a question of the comment.

Jack nodded. “I was.” There was more to his simple answer than he’d intended. He swallowed and looked around. The house was quiet. “Is it too late?”

“Never.” Phryne’s voice was softer than he’d ever heard it.

“I’ve never seen her like that before,” Jack said, trying to explain and trying to maintain his fragile calm. Phryne joined him at the foot of the stairs and looked at him with a tender sadness that made his throat tighten, almost with panic. _She thinks I’m going back to Rosie._ “She was in shock,” he continued quietly. “She... just needed some company.” 

Phryne’s smile was wistful. “She needed you, Jack Robinson. The man who always does the right thing. The noble thing.” 

Jack looked at her for a moment. “Not always, Miss Fisher.” 

He stepped forward and pressed his hand to the side of Phryne’s neck, and kissed her, softly and slowly. The touch of her mouth against his flooded him with a sense of homecoming, and again, the desire to flee. He trembled with the effort of not breaking. “Come away with me, Phryne,” he whispered against her lips. “I need to get away.”

“Yes... tonight?”

“Tonight.”

“Thank you,” Jack murmured, pulling away, and at precisely the correct moment. 

“Was that the baby?” asked Aunt Prudence’s strident voice, as the short stout woman came bustling into the hall, and saw Jack. “Oh! It’s very late, Inspector,” she said, her words dripping with polite suspicion and displeasure.

“Yes,” Jack agreed huskily. “Yes, it is. But – I’m glad we cleared up that detail, Miss Fisher.” 

“So am I, Jack,” said Phryne quickly, nodding. “So am I.” 

The baby, which Jack dimly, recalled hearing about, let out a squall of displeasure. 

“It’s alright, little man,” Aunt Prudence sang out, giving Jack one last glare, “I’m coming.” She disappeared into the parlour, leaving Phryne and Jack alone again. 

Phryne glanced at the parlour door, then gave Jack another brief kiss. “Go,” she whispered. “Wait in the car. I’ll be out in five minutes.”

Jack’s eyes shone with mute gratitude, and he left quickly, before the lump in his throat could burst. It waited until Phryne was safely on the car seat next to him, but the moment the door was closed and her shoulder was pressed to his, there was no stopping it.


	3. Seeking Shapes in the Darkness

Jack wasn’t sure how long they sat in his car in the quiet St. Kilda street, with Phryne holding him as he sobbed out the fear and stress, not only of the last week, but of the past several months, ever since George... But the thought of his former father-in-law only made him weep harder. 

_“I looked up to you, George. I respected you.”_

He tried repeatedly to get hold of himself, to reassert his self-control, to stop crying like a child terrified of the dark, but he could not. He was too far gone. All he could do was bury his face in Phryne’s neck until he was too wrung out from crying to go on. “Sorry,” he croaked out, at last.

Phryne let out a low sigh. “No apologies required, Jack, darling. How do you feel?”

“Ragged.”

She smoothed his hair beneath her gloved hands. “I’m not surprised,” she murmured. “Here, slide over.”

“Eh?”

“You asked me to run away with you tonight and that’s what we’re going to do. But you’re in no condition to drive, so come over here and let me get in the driver’s seat.”

She was waiting for him to protest, even expecting it. A hundred replies all raced through Jack’s mind, but they were all muted, and he couldn’t muster up the energy to utter any of them. Jack sat up and inched over, letting Phryne clamber over him to take her place behind the wheel. “Try to relax and rest a little,” she advised, putting the car into gear. 

It seemed impossible to relax any further; Jack felt as limp and worn as an old rag, and… numb. But he understood – she wanted him to sleep away the long drive to the coast. 

Well... maybe. 

In the end, Jack found himself alternating as Phryne drove, between sitting up and staring out the window, his eyes seeking for shapes in the darkness, and lying down across the front seat, his head resting on Phryne’s thigh. Whenever he felt her hand in his hair, he knew she was steering solely with the other, and that was enough to convince him to sit up, to yawn until his jaw cracked, and to try to stay awake a little longer. The more tired he became, the harder it go to keep the dark thoughts pushed away.

And if he slept, there would be dreams. Jack had a particular aversion to dreaming. 

But he must have fallen asleep at some point, because one moment he was sitting up and staring out the windshield at the road illuminated by the car's headlamps, and the next, he was horizontal, flat, stretching out on the front seat, and Phryne was shaking him gently by the shoulder. “We’re here, Jack. We’re at the cottage.”

He grunted and crawled, slowly, out of the car, so groggy and exhausted that Phryne had to help him walk up the gravel drive and into the little house. She guided him through the kitchen and into the bedroom. It was chilly but welcoming in its secret familiarity, and Jack almost broke into tears again, this time from relief. 

He fell back to sleep while Phryne was undressing him.


	4. Lonely Sounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is such a **Monday** , y'all...

Jack’s sleep turned out to be mercifully uneventful, and he clung to unconsciousness as morning came and went, burying his face between the pillow and Phryne’s shoulder. The pillow case smelled mustily of lavender, salt, and dust, and Phryne’s skin smelled like jasmine and stale perfume and a faint whiff of automobile odors, a combination of petrol, oil, exhaust and leather that Jack had come to associate with Phryne and therefore with safety.

He burrowed closer into the space between Phryne and the bed, fleeing from the daylight, wanting only to go back to the sweet anonymous darkness of sleep. But his mind was awake now, playing the events of the last few days over and over like a demented filmstrip. Outside, down the shore, the sea rolled and crashed soberly over the sand. 

It seemed to Jack to be a very lonely sound. 

He let out a long sigh and sat up, stretching his limbs and groaning softly. 

“Awake already?” asked a groggy voice. 

He dropped his hands into his blanket-covered lap. “Sorry.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I’m... maybe? I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.”

“I’m not surprised.” He felt her hand touch his spine, and then rub gently up and down. “Come back to sleep, Jack.”

“I can’t. My brain’s awake now.” Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair. It was tacky with the previous day’s pomade. “God, I need a bath. And tea.”

“Later.” A second hand joined the first, and then with a rustle of sheets, Phryne’s sleep-warm cheek was laid against his shoulder blade. Her hands slipped down the muscles of his back and then her arms went around his waist. Jack’s eyelids fluttered closed. God, but she was comfortable. What an odd thing to think about the Honourable Phryne Fisher... “We came to get away. There’s no need for you to get up early.”

“‘Early?’” Jack snorted. “Phryne, it must be well after noon by now. What did you do with my wristwatch?”

“It’s on the nightstand. Now lie down, for God’s sake,” Phryne grumbled, brushing her lips over the short hairs at the back of his neck. Jack shivered and pulled away gently.

“Go back to sleep, Phryne,” he said, chuckling. Defeated, she flopped back down and pulled the covers up to her eyebrows with decidedly ill grace. “I promise to wake you nicely when I’m done with the bath.”

“You’d better bring me a damn good cup of tea while you’re at it,” she muttered, her voice muffled by her pillow.

Jack went into the kitchen first, to make sure Phryne had remembered to hang the sign telling their local housekeeper not to call. It was, and the clock on the mantel in the little sitting room showed ten minutes to one, so it was plain enough that she was emphatically not coming. But the time went some way towards explaining why Jack still felt exhausted. He had never been one for sleeping half the day away.

That wasn’t the real reason he was so tired, of course, and as he stepped into the bathroom and began to run the water into the tub, he had a memory, visceral and sudden, of doing the same for Rosie the night before.

He’d driven her to her sister’s house, a woman who had supported Rosie through the divorce while never taking the failure of the marriage out on Jack, so he felt comfortable staying, for a while, until Rosie calmed enough for him to take his leave. He’d made himself useful to Phoebe while she tended to her little sister – he corralled the smaller children into the care of the older ones, he explained the situation to Phoebe’s wheelchair-bound husband, he made vast amounts of tea for everyone... and at Phoebe’s request, he had drawn Rosie a bath.

The water cascaded into the porcelain tub, almost as loud as the waves on the beach. Jack cut the water off abruptly, and pulled the plug from the drain. 

He built a fire of driftwood in the little kitchen range, and then put the kettle on to heat while he paced the kitchen fretfully, wrapped only in a towel he had taken from the bathroom. There was a dressing gown in the bedroom, but he didn’t want to run the risk of waking Phryne just yet, and truthfully, he hardly felt the autumn chill. 

He had left town too soon. There was too much still to be done in Melbourne. The case against Sidney Fletcher and George Sanderson was not solely a case of murder; it would have to be coordinated with the vice officers. And the death of Maury Berk would, Jack realized with dull dawning horror, need to be reexamined. There was now every possibility that George had planned to kill him from the very beginning. If Berk had known... There was too much to do. There was paperwork to file, there were reports to write and witnesses to question, and there was Rosie. He owed her his support and his protection, what little he could offer.

The kettle screamed. Jack removed it hurriedly and poured the water into an odd little teapot shaped like a cottage. He tipped in some tea leaves and then grabbed a cup from the cupboard and a handful of biscuits from a tin. He tumbled the whole lot onto a tray and took it into the bedroom. He had to go back, as soon as possible.


	5. Grit in a Pair of Oysters

He set the tray down on the bedside table with a loud rattle and set about hunting for his clothes. Phryne, jerked out of sleep by his clatter, made irritated noises of semi-conscious disapproval and emerged from her pillow-and-blanket cocoon to reach for a cup. “Where’s the fire?” she muttered. 

“We’re going back,” Jack said, stripping the towel from around his waist and beginning to collect his clothing from the night before. “At least I am.”

Phryne paused with the cup halfway to her lips. She pushed her hair behind her ear and tried to blink the sleep from her eyes. Her still-groggy brain grasped at the forefront of his statement. “There’s only one car, I’d have to go with you.” She swallowed a mouthful of tea and waited a second or two for the heat to trickle through her limbs. The significance of his words hit her at the same time as the caffeine. “Wait, go _back_? Jack, what’s _happened_?”

He found his trousers draped over a spindle-backed chair and shook out the dampness they had gathered from the previous night's chill. “I made a mistake in coming here... in running away. I have to get back to Melbourne as quickly as possible.”

“...For Rosie?” Phryne took another sip of tea. The temptation to fall back on her pillows again was so strong, but the bed had proven to be rather cold without Jack in it.

“I’m all she has left,” he pointed out quietly. “I can’t just abandon her because I’m a little exhausted.”

“Jack. I had to undress you and put you to bed last night, because you were already unconscious.” Phryne set her cup aside. An enormous yawn nearly split her head in two. “I think it’s safe to say we’re both more than a _little_ exhausted. Come back to bed."

“I don’t need any more sleep.”

“I didn’t say sleep.” 

Jack shook his head sharply. “Phryne, in the last twenty-four hours, I have dealt with you getting kidnapped and nearly shot, I’ve shot my ex-wife’s fiancé, arrested both him and my former father-in-law for white slavery, upended the entire political structure of the Victorian Police Department, and held my ex-wife as she cried in my arms. If I don’t go back to Melbourne and _deal_ with all of that, the only other option is to stay here and ignore it and pray that the nightmares don’t rise up and _strangle me in my sleep_.”

Phryne sighed and sat up. The sheet fell from her torso, leaving her bare to the waist. Jack’s eyes softened at the sight of her. She held out her hand. “Come here, Jack.”

Her fingers tightened around his and drew him close, and though his conscience still tried to prick him, Jack went willingly into her arms. Her skin radiated the special sort of warmth that came with having slept snuggled down in soft sheets for hours, and it soothed him more than the bath would have done. He kissed her lips tenderly, marveling once more how different they were when they were bare than when they were made up. With lipstick, her mouth was a permanent alluring smirk. Without, her lips were wider than was perhaps fashionable, but just as inviting, and less alluring than simply welcoming. 

For a time, he simply held her. Or she held him. He felt rather that she was holding him, and as good and right and _safe_ as it felt, it was still a struggle to let her, when a loud demanding part of his brain still insisted that he had to get dressed and go home. 

“Do you want to go home?”

“…Was I thinking out loud?” Jack grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Do you?”

“I… feel like I need to.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“No.” Jack dropped his forehead to her shoulder briefly. “I want to stay here and hide. But I have responsibilities that I can’t ignore for my own sake.” He looked up into Phryne’s tired, knowing eyes. “What are you going to say? That I can’t save them all?”

Phryne smiled lopsidedly. “That would be a bit rich, coming from me.”

“Still. It’s not wrong...” 

“I’m safe, Jack. Rosie is safe, all the Gratitude Girls are safe. Fletcher and Sanderson are in prison. _You’re_ safe here.”

“Yes… But it doesn’t matter. I have to go back.”

“Jack—”

“She’s my friend, Phryne. I have to be there for her.”

“And you will be. But not today, love. You need to rest, and recuperate, at least for a little while.”

“I can do that in Melbourne.”

Phryne didn’t even bother trying to hide her rolling eyes. “No,” she groaned, clearly wishing she was still asleep, “you can’t. More to the point, _I_ can’t.”

“Hmm?”

“Jack, I have every confidence in your strength and tenacity, I know what will happen if we go back to Melbourne today. You will go back to work and promptly run yourself straight into the ground, and I won’t be able to do a damned thing for you because no one in Melbourne knows about us.”

He ruffled her hair and then dropped a kiss to it. “That hasn’t bothered you before,” he murmured.

“And it would not be bothering me now, except... I know what will happen, Jack. The case will come first. And then there will be other cases. And you will take more onto your shoulders than you can handle...”

“And I will let you help, as I always do.”

“Not always. Not when you’re hurting.” 

“I could say the same thing about you.” He nuzzled his nose and mouth into her hair and breathed in her scent. “We’re not very good at letting one another in.”

“We’re learning,” said Phryne wryly. “Slowly and with great irritation.”

“Like grit in a pair of oysters.”

“Except instead of pearls, you’ve got me. And I do hope you realize the privilege I’ve conferred on you, Inspector.” 

Jack huffed out a laugh and cuddled her closer. “Yes, Miss Fisher, I know.”


	6. Eloquence

Phryne was awake now. She touched Jack gently beneath the blankets, rousing him slowly, with soft feathery kisses to his lips and throat and soft feathery brushes of her hands against his groin.

“Phryne… oh god…” He closed his eyes under her ministrations and tried to lose himself in her touch and in the safety and comfort of her presence… but it was difficult. He tried to put the events of the past few days out of his mind, but even her lithe form pressed against him and her hands doing things to his body that not even his foul mood could deter wasn’t enough to clear the frightening memories, the sickening realizations, the dull horror of what had awaited them all. The Gratitude Girls, Rosie… Phryne…

“Stop thinking,” she ordered, folding her hand firmly around his cock. Jack’s breath hitched in his throat. “No more worrying about what might have been, or what might happen tomorrow.” Phryne molded herself even more tightly against him. “Just… let go, darling. Just for a little while… let go.”

“It’s hard,” he whispered. 

It seemed to him as though Phryne was trying to pull him close enough that nothing would ever be able to hurt him again. “I know it is, Jack,” she said softly. “Believe me… it took me a very long time to learn how to leave such things outside the boudoir. But it had to be done, love, or else I would have gone mad before I was twenty-one.”

“I’m fairly certain I was already mad by then,” said Jack forlornly. He rolled her gently onto her back and wrapped himself in the soft welcoming curves of her body. She reached between them and took his cock in hand, guiding him into her. “Oh…” He rested his forehead on her breastbone. “You feel… so bloody good.”

Phryne chuckled. “Jack Robinson,” she sighed, combing her fingers through his hair, “always so eloquent.”

“Whatever eloquence I might possess evaporates every time you get your hands on me.”

“I beg to differ.” She shifted underneath him, rolling her hips and taking him deeper. “You have the most eloquent body and hands and lips I have ever encountered.”

He moved slowly, trying to do as she said and to simply let go for a little while. He didn’t feel fit enough for vigorous love-making, and Phryne was in that state of early morning (though it was after noon) drowsy wakefulness that seemed to require gentleness.

“You’re not going to tell me not to worry about you finishing, are you?”

“...Are you dying? Because if you’re terminally ill, I might consider letting you off lightly, but otherwise...” That made him laugh, in spite of himself. “I do love that sound... _especially_ when you’re inside me...” Phryne stroked the thick tumbled hair off his forehead and kissed him there. “But take your time, Jack, love.”

He closed his eyes and lost himself in her, and finally, _finally_ , let himself go,.

Afterward, she held him as he quietly cried, mourning for the loss of one of his closest friends and the destruction of his former wife’s future. Phryne said very little, but she wiped his eyes on the linen sheets and kept her hand in his. When at last Jack ran out of tears, he framed her face in his hands and kissed her tiredly, and sighed. 

“They’re going to have to learn about us eventually. Our friends in Melbourne. The secrecy is thrilling, but…”

“It’s one of my very favourite things,” said Phryne wryly, “but no… I know. And better for them to find out from us directly than from the newspapers. But this is perhaps… not the most politic time to announce to my aunt and your colleagues that we are… involved.”

Jack groaned. “Lord, no.”


	7. Curses and Anchors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, firesign. You got your boob-cupping. ;)

“Let’s go for a swim while the sun’s still out.”

Jack let that sentence work its way through his brain once or twice before he attempted to respond. “Are you serious?”

“Of course. Doubly so, in fact, as I’ve been far too sentimental this morning.”

“But it’s the end of June. That water’s going to be freezing.”

Phryne kissed him and grinned brightly. “Just the thing we need to distract us.”

It occurred to Jack that one of the first serious things that Phryne Fisher had ever said to him was ‘I haven’t taken anything seriously since nineteen-eighteen.’ And the thing that Phryne took the most seriously was living in defiance of what felt like life itself. 

“So what did you have in mind?” He grinned. “Just streak down the beach and plunge into the waves?”

Phryne gazed at him in delight, and for a moment, Jack rather thought he had taken her breath away. “That sounds perfect.”

She tossed back the covers and bounded from the bed with no hint of yesterday’s grinding horror and exhaustion or this morning’s emotional stress and post-coital breakdown, and paused on her way out the door to give Jack a playful little come-hither look over her bare shoulder. “I’ll race you.”

“Oh, that’s your game, is it?” Jack sprang from the bed and vaulted after her. 

They careened out of the tiny cottage and burst into the chilly afternoon sun, which had warmed the air and the sand slightly, but it hadn’t done much for the water. Phryne plowed into it without hesitation, and let out an ear-piercing yelp and a curse so blue Jack actually blushed. Or would have, if he hadn’t been immediately behind her and cursing just as fluently as his chattering teeth would allow him.

“Jesus _balls_ , this is cold,” he gasped. Speaking of ball, his own had retracted so far into his body cavity that they were practically in his throat.

“At least you’re awake now?” Phryne said, very breathlessly, as they tread water in the shallow waves and shivered.

Jack burst out laughing. “I was already awake!” 

“Well, now you really are!” Phryne shuddered as a wave lapped teasingly at her bare skin, and insinuated herself into Jack’s lap to suck up what remained of his body heat. She wrapped her legs around his waist, draped her arms around his neck, and kissed him softly. “Are you all right?”

“I will be, Phryne,” he said simply. He curved his hands around the swells of her hips, anchoring her to him, and him to her. “I will be, eventually.” He looked down at the two hard bumps prodding his chest and then raised his hands back up to cup her breasts, gently palming her painfully hard nipples.

Phryne moaned and let her head fall back. “Oh, Jack, you are a _godsend_.”

“I don’t especially feel like one.” He found a sand bar under his feet and worked his toes into it to keep the current from drifting them too far from the cottage. “I helped save a shipload of children and shut down a white slavery ring, but I also arrested my ex-wife’s fiancé and father. I just destroyed Rosie’s life.”

“If anything,” Phryne pointed out, cuddling closer and brushing a wet curl from his forehead, “you may have saved her from as terrible a fate as those girls. Who knows what her life with Fletcher would have been like?”

“…Perhaps.”

Phryne turned around in his lap, giving his hands better coverage of her breasts and wriggling her backside more snugly against his belly. “Were… you and Sanderson especially close, during your marriage to Rosie?”

“My father died when I was sixteen. George lost his only son at Gallipoli. Yes… we were close.” Jack drew in a deep breath. “And I put him behind bars. Oh, I know he deserves it, but I took him down, Phryne. And for such a crime… it’s like losing my dad all over again.” He swallowed the lump building in his throat and pressed a kiss to her salt-tinged neck. “I’ll be fine. I need to grieve… but I’ll be fine.”

Phryne took his hands from her breasts and brought them to her lips. “And I’ll be here.” She floated off his lap and turned to him with an expression of deep sympathy, with an understanding of shared pain, and loss, and love. “Now come on. Let’s go inside and find some warmer water.”


End file.
